Despite a report last week that ABC and Marvel had shelved plans for an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spinoff that was to focus on Adrianne Palicki’s Bobbi Morse/Mockingbird and Nick Blood’s Lance Hunter, there’s hope for the project yet.
During a conference call earlier today with Variety ahead of the network’s upfronts in New York, ABC Entertainment Group president Paul Lee said that he hopes the spinoff can be revisited down the road. “It certainly is a possibility of spinning them off,” Lee said, raving about the performance of both Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is on the verge of wrapping up a drastically improved sophomore run, and midseason entry Agent Carter (both series have been renewed for additional seasons).
“We absolutely love those characters on S.H.I.E.L.D. We think S.H.I.E.L.D. hit its creative stride this year,” Lee added, explaining that plans to pull Morse and Hunter away from the rest of the series’ leads made less and less sense the more it became clear that the characters still had a place on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “We thought the right thing now is to leave them on S.H.I.E.L.D., because S.H.I.E.L.D. is so strong at the moment.”
So, while Lee is leaving Morse and Hunter put for now, he’s certainly open to talking about a spinoff with the characters further down the line. Right now, though, S.H.I.E.L.D. still needs the fan favorite characters.
In other Marvel-related news, Lee confirmed, as has been rumored for months, that American Crime creator John Ridley is hard at work on a project that, like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter, will be a collaboration between ABC and the superhero-centric studio. “I can’t talk about the John Ridley one, other than to say that he’s working on it,” he said.
Some rumors surrounding the Ridley project have suggested that it will be a Ms. Marvel series that focuses on Kamala Khan, but that should be taken with a huge grain of salt until any official word comes from the network or Ridley’s camp.